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| Magical Myths 103 Lesson Six Gobins (Part II) |
| The word goblin derives from the greek Koba-los, meaning �rogue�. The same work produced they German Kobold or Kobot and the French gobelin. As the name suggest they tend not to haunt a single family or home, but are rather given to roam. Sometimes goblins are portrayed as more industrious then evil, good at mining and metal work. Their cousins, the hobgoblins, are the one who tend to be more the pranksters. Gobins have been known to do good deeds. Long before he wrote �The Christmas Carol�, Charles Dickens wrote �the Story of the Goblin Who Stole a Sexton�, a story in which goblin showed a man, named Gabriel Grub, �that the world isn�t as bad as it seems�, like the ghost do for Scrooge. Goblins are most often portrayed like those of Christmas Rosetti�s poem, Goblin Market: We must not look at goblin men, We must not buy their fruits, Who knows upon what soil they fed Their hungry thirsty roots? Their offers should not charm us, Their evil gifts would harm us! People used to rid themselves of goblins by spreading flax seeds on their kitchen floor. For some reason, the goblin was compelled to pick up all seeds, a very boring task. The goblin would soon look for fun elsewhere. Many today learned about goblins from the movie Labyrinth, with the Goblin King and if one wished to be rid of a baby brother or sister, one need only call upon the goblins to taken the child away! In J.R.R. Tolkien�s chronicles of Middle-earth, goblins are called �orcs� by many. Tolkien scholar, Robert Foster, called them an �evil race�. He says they �were bred in mockery of Elves, and like Elves, they were fierce warriors and did not die naturally. However, in all else they were different. They hated all things of beauty, loved to kill and destroy but they were not fond of the sun, they loved more the dark places.. Tolkien�s Uruk-hai was a cross between orcs with goblin men and was made in birthing pits with minerals and dark magic. One advantage of the Uruk-hai, sunlight did not bother them. Although no two orc are alike, the Uruk-hai was more uniform. |
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| Goblin hoard from the movie Laybrinth > |
| Charles Dickens |
| Their name comes from the Roman god of the underworld, Orcus, which is also the Latin word for Hell itself. Tolkien was not the only one to use this to describe monsters, Beowulf also used a form of it, meaning �ogre� or �hell demon�. |
| Peter Jackson's idea of a Uruk-hai. |
| Jackson's orcs! |
| Quiz: |
| 1.) What does the word 'goblin' derive from and what does it mean? 2.) What is Charles Dicken's story of goblins about? 3.) How would you rid yourself of goblins? 4.) What do the goblins of Laybrith do if you wish? 5.) In Tolkein's world, what were orcs (goblins) bred for? 6.) What are the traits of the orcs in Middle-earth? 7.) What are the Uruk-hai? 8.) Do orcs look alike? Do Uruk-hai? 9.) Where did Tolkien get the name 'orc'? |
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